


Three Unthwarted Wiles

by almaasi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Asexual Aziraphale, Asexual Crowley, Aziraphale's Bookshop, Crowley's Flat, Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Cuddling, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mini Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Moving In Together, Nanny Crowley, Nonbinary Aziraphale (Good Omens), Nonbinary Crowley, Other, Romance, Sharing a Bed, Touch-Starved Crowley (Good Omens), but does the agender thing go without saying? idk how this fandom's tags work yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 14:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20116639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almaasi/pseuds/almaasi
Summary: "You see a wile, yathwart, am I right?""Broadly."Yet there are just some demonic wiles that Aziraphale cannot bring himself to oppose.1. The Suspicious Cocoa2. Crowley's Plants vs. Mary Poppins3. One Especially Nefarious Proposition Involving Accidental Slow-Dancing, Moving in Together, and Cuddling





	Three Unthwarted Wiles

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is: my first non-Supernatural fic on AO3. I posted an Arizaphale/Crowley & Dean/Cas fic [**The Angel Cake Challenge**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024635) back in March 2019, the day the Good Omens trailer came out, but for some reason it took me just under 2 months, after watching the show three times, for me to decide to write fic. And now I can't stop. There's two more A/C fics in my drafts and there will be more. I hope you enjoy, friends~
> 
> Beta'd by Libby, Katie, and Joanjun.

** 1 **

** THE SUSPICIOUS COCOA **

** CENTRAL LONDON, 1799 **

“Oh, what do _you_ want?”

Crowley removed his top hat, looking offended. “Can I... lend a hand?”

Aziraphale faffed in annoyance, muttering to himself as he bent backwards, struggling with a heavy box.

“You’ll sprain your back like that, angel,” Crowley said, sauntering forward. A long, slender red scarf trailed from the band of his top hat, which he tucked under the arm of his black tailcoat. With gloved hands, he helped Aziraphale straighten the box, and together they slid the weight onto the empty middle platform of an otherwise overstuffed bookshelf.

“Well... thank you,” Aziraphale said, brow furrowed, catching Crowley’s eyes, then looking away. “I hope you’re not looking for my _assistance_ in anything. This bookshop has proved to be quite a time-consuming enterprise, let me tell you.”

“Yes,” Crowley said slowly, snake eyes twinkling behind his dark half-moon glasses. “What’s it been, six years since you started up your shop? Place still isn’t done, I take it.”

“Isn’t— Isn’t _done_?” Aziraphale looked at his friend, aghast, a wide-eyed expression which only intensified as Crowley turned away, starting to sweep the shelves with a gloved fingertip, apparently checking for dust. “What the devil gives you that impression, Crowley? _Isn’t done_.”

“Well, it’s all—” Crowley twirled a finger, eyes rising to the tops of the wooden shelves, then the piles and piles of books on the white-tiled floor, then he pursed his lips. “It’s all plain. And quiet.”

“I’ll have you know, I like it quiet. No customers whatsoever. Certainly without tempestuous little snakes winding their way between the shelves— Don’t touch that!” Aziraphale snatched a gold-filigreed novel out of Crowley’s hands. “Do you know what it _took_ for me to acquire this particular gem?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me, if you could spare an evening for, say... dinner? Seven o’clock.”

Aziraphale slowly closed his mouth, forgetting the rant he’d been about to start. “Dinner?”

“My place.”

“You have a place, do you? Is it new?”

“Relative to our age, yes. I’ve been there, oh, six years.”

“Why have you never invited me? Where is it, Crowley, the sewer?”

“Angel, I’ve been living in London as long as you have. It’s not my fault you never looked up from your precious _books_.”

“Yes, well.” Aziraphale turned away and tucked his beloved book back on a shelf, stroking its spine. “After a certain amount of time these fellows become fairly companionable. Hard to leave them alone, some days. _Someone_ ought to look after them, hadn’t they.”

“They’re books. Words between leather. Language sandwiches. They’ll survive without you for an evening.”

The bookshop’s door pinged open, and a customer walked in with her bustling skirts and a frilled bonnet. Aziraphale’s hair stood on end.

“Out!” he yelped. “Out-out-out! We’re closed! We’re always closed, can’t you read the sign?” He fanned the customer away like a bad smell, and shut the door behind her. “The nerve. These people! They’re always in here, trying to _buy_ things.”

“You do run a book_shop_.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I should be forced to part ways with my collection. The moment I allow people to browse, they start asking how _much_ things are. As if my darling, priceless books could be bought and sold like common groceries.” He harrumphed, and made his way back to the shelf on which Crowley now leaned seductively. Aziraphale began unpacking his box of especially rare tomes.

“So,” Crowley said. “Dinner? I can pick you up in my carriage if you like. Drop you off again. You wouldn’t have to be apart from your books for all that long. We wouldn’t do anything too elaborate. Just... starters, a main course, seconds... and a treat for after. And then wine, of course. You could be back by midnight. Mmm. Maybe two o’clock. You know how we get when we really start talking.”

Aziraphale hesitated. His eyes slid to Crowley, then back to his shelf. “Tempting... Truly is... But...”

“Oh, fine!” Crowley snarled gently. “Have it your way. I’ll be back later with dinner. Go back to tending to your... _quiet_ friends. We’ll eat here.”

He sneered a little, then swept off in his black frock coat, which Aziraphale noticed nipped in attractively at the waist. Just as Crowley neared the exit, putting his hat back on, Aziraphale called out brightly, “I look forward to it!”

He heard a sarcastic grunt, and then the door jingled open and shut, letting in a brisk autumn breeze then taking it away.

Aziraphale breathed deeply, and shut his eyes, smiling, as he still sensed that dirty little demon smell he’d missed so badly.

  
**☜♡☞**  


“You know,” Aziraphale said, smoothing out a wrinkle in the tablecloth he’d laid down, then inching his fingers over to his golden fork, tilting it parallel with his knife, “you never did say what you wanted. Why are you here, now, after six years? Last time I saw you we had crepes in Paris.”

Crowley looked up from carving the meat, his slitted yellow eyes round and innocent. “Why do I have to be in want of something? Maybe I just want some company.”

“Maybe you do,” Aziraphale said tentatively, as Crowley served him a neat slice of something that steamed incessantly and smelled delicious. He added roasted potatoes and green beans and then – surprisingly – a delicate sweep of mustard cut across the plate with the back of a spoon.

“Bon appetit,” Crowley said darkly, sinking to his own chair and serving himself the same way.

Aziraphale tucked a napkin in his collar, then bent to dig into his dinner, eyes on Crowley. They sat opposite each other at a tiny round table under the small, low-hanging chandelier in the centre of the bookshop. It had been a bigger, higher chandelier about forty minutes ago, but that kind of overhead light was just no good for conversation. Aziraphale had been saving up his miracles, and now seemed a good time to spend.

Crowley looked quite handsome in this soft lighting. Whether or not Crowley was telling the truth about ‘wanting company’, Aziraphale was privately flattered. He _was_ good company, wasn’t he? Certainly better than all the amoral waifs and strays Crowley had no doubt been languishing with for the better half of the last decade.

“So,” Aziraphale said, patting his lips with the end of his napkin, “what would you say if I told you...”

Crowley sensed a pang of discord in the air and looked up, thrilled.

“...If I told you I might have... stolen that particular book.” Aziraphale flushed under Crowley’s hungry gaze. “Well, ‘borrowed’ is probably more— Well, no. Borrowed prior to arranging permissions. Well. I haven’t gotten around to arranging permissions yet. It’s on my to-do list.”

“You stole a _book_!” Crowley chirped, crinkles around his eyes, a jump in his voice. “Oh, you are a naughty angel.”

“Don’t _look_ at me like that, Crowley, it makes me tingly,” Aziraphale said crossly. He glanced up, tingled again, then insisted, “Really, I mean it.”

Crowley sat back in his chair, hands up, looking away. He couldn’t stop smirking. “Now I’m wondering why it _did_ take me six years to worm my way back to you. We could’ve thieved it away together, angel.”

“I’ll have none of that, thank you,” Aziraphale scolded. “I’m not a criminal. I merely offered a loving home in my heart to a marvellous creation that was going without the care and attention it truly deserved.”

“Yes,” Crowley purred, leaning forward again, elbows on the table, eyes on Aziraphale. “You do have a habit of doing that.”

Aziraphale’s eyes snapped up from his food, caught Crowley’s gaze, then snapped back down so Crowley didn’t see him blush.

“A little honesty could go both ways, you know,” Aziraphale said quietly, cutting a small potato with his knife and fork, dragging it through the mustard before popping it into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, then explained, “I’ve confessed to you. Now you tell me why you’re really here.”

Crowley’s smile faded. He looked down.

Aziraphale hummed. “From _that_ expression I can only infer it’s truly horrendous. What do you need me for, covering up a murder? Or committing one?”

Crowley frowned. “Have you _ever_ trusted me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do you ever _not_ assume what I say is a lie? Can I only function with some evil ulterior motive? Is that what you really think of me, after all this time?”

“Of course you’re lying, Crowley. You’re a demon, it’s what you do.”

Crowley hissed and tossed his napkin onto the table, apparently done with his meal, even though there was still potato and sauce on his plate. He sank back in his chair, arms folded, his bare and bony hands covered by the bell sleeves on his blood-red shirt.

Aziraphale softened. He couldn’t bear to see Crowley upset. “Sulk all you like, my dear,” he said gently. “But until the night’s over you know I can’t believe you don’t have something devious up each of your sleeves.”

“The only thing up my sleeves is this,” Crowley said, digging two fingers into his cuff, and pulling out a red flower. He presented it to Aziraphale. Half its petals were missing, stalk bent, its pollen smeared away. Crowley blew on it and it re-bloomed, delicate and pretty and even more suspicious than before.

Aziraphale took the flower. “Thank... you,” he said unsurely.

Crowley looked delighted. He picked up his fork and got back to eating.

  
**☜♡☞**  


“I brought a little treat for you, angel,” Crowley said, while Aziraphale was surreptitiously trying to unbutton his trousers under the table.

Flustered, Azirpahale snatched his hands back up, relieved as his waistband no longer pressed on his full stomach. “Treat?”

“Oh yes.” Crowley got up and swayed his way towards the slinky black kitchen that had just popped into existence ten feet away. “You’ll like it.”

Aziraphale strained in his seat, trying to see into the kitchen. “Is it sweet?”

“Yes.”

“Soft and nice?”

“Very.”

“Hot?”

“Ideally.”

Aziraphale’s mouth started to water. Then he hesitated, and his fingertips tapped together. Crowley was no doubt exercising those demonic wiles of his, at last. Seemed about time, after all the false starts tonight. Either he was being genuinely nice, or whatever he had stashed up the other sleeve was very dastardly indeed.

Hah! The latter. Always the latter.

“Aaaand...?” Crowley came out of the kitchen and it vanished behind him. On a silver tray he carried two tall glasses of grey-brown liquid with two inches of white at the top.

“Oh?” Aziraphale craned up to see, then leaned in as Crowley put down the tray and sat opposite. “What’s this?”

“I recall you once saying – what was it – you would give over a whole angelic wing if you could one day enjoy chocolate as good as the chocolate we tried in the sixteenth century.”

“It _was_ a figure of speech. I dare say you’re after a wing now.”

Crowley said nothing, just pushed one glass towards Aziraphale. Aziraphale looked into the glass and saw the surface of the white liquid ripple thickly. “This is fresh cream,” he realised, taking the long spoon Crowley handed him. “So what’s underneath?”

“Sixteenth century’s no match for this, angel,” Crowley promised. “I’ve just invented _hot chocolate_.”

“Invente—” Aziraphale’s spoon dropped into the glass and he fished up a spoonful of – he tasted it with the tip of his tongue – actual chocolate. As in, a bar of chocolate melted down and mixed with hot milk to become a drink. It was thick as soup but smooth as silk... for a time. A pool of cold cream now puddled amongst the little squiggles of chocolate on the spoon. Its lower temperature started to solidify the drink into clots, so Aziraphale stuffed it into his mouth, moaning as his eyes fell shut.

Sixteenth century cocoa disappeared from his mind with a lethargic pop. He was never looking back, now _this_ existed.

“Didn’t I tell you,” Crowley said, stirring his own drink so the cream mixed in. He grinned. “Special treat. Six years, and we’re back together again. Had to celebrate.”

“Hmmmmm,” Aziraphale groaned, sinking in his chair, nose in the glass as he inhaled. “Ohh, it’s majestic.”

“Majestic!” Crowley swigged his own cocoa. He gulped, then suggested, “Just... heavenly, would you say?”

“Oh, not at all! Crowley, it’s _sinful_,” Aziraphale breathed, coming undone where he sat. “Oh, good Lord...” He sighed lovingly and took a proper sip, whimpering as his tongue became coated with warm, gooey deliciousness.

Crowley sat and watched, chin on his palm, a faint smile on his lips as his spoon stirred itself absent-mindedly.

Over ten deeply pleasurable minutes, Aziraphale drained the glass empty, then used the spoon to scrape up the sides, savouring every smudge. He held the empty glass to his eye and peered through it like a telescope. “All gone,” he said sadly.

Crowley started to push his own over.

“No, no, no, don’t let me take the honour away from you,” Aziraphale insisted, pushing it back, holding Crowley’s hand in the process. “You invented it, you enjoy it.”

“‘Invented’ might be a strong word,” Crowley said guiltily. “‘Borrowed’, let’s say. Although ‘appropriated’ might be a better name for it.”

“_Crow_ley,” Aziraphale scolded, with a downward tone, but some warmth. He sighed, then said, “Well, whatever it came from, it was delicious. I’m very grateful.”

Crowley smiled, still resting on his hand. He looked down into his glass, twirling the spoon around a finger.

Aziraphale waited.

Then waited some more.

“Well?” the angel urged. “Don’t you want that wing? A feather, at least.”

Crowley squinted. “Thought you said it was a figure of speech.”

“It was.” Aziraphale fretted.

A snort. “You keep your wings, angel. As fine and dandy as you’d still be with just one, I hardly have any use for the other, do I? Bet anything you’d be happier to keep both. And isn’t _that_ all I really want, deep down? Just to see you happy?”

Sarcasm was a given there, obviously... even though Crowley’s declaration didn’t _sound_ especially sarcastic. He was always sarcastic.

As they gazed at each other, Aziraphale slowly... gradually... and with some surprise, came to realise that Crowley didn’t actually want anything in particular from him. Nothing bad, anyhow.

He was just lonely.

Maybe there hadn’t been any amoral waifs and strays in the meantime. Or maybe there were – but Crowley did always have an odd inclination towards non-demonic company. Maybe...? Maybe he’d missed Aziraphale as much as Aziraphale missed him.

...Oh, poppycock!

What a ridiculous notion. Just because they’d been friends for five thousand, eight hundred years, didn’t mean they had any right to _like_ each other. Let alone do a silly thing like trust each other.

The cocoa remained suspicious.

But Aziraphale settled back with a full tummy and a happy smile. As conversation progressed, the wine bottles emptied, and the night went on ‘til dawn, he forgot his distrust, instead enjoying his and Crowley’s thoroughly reignited friendship, which was the most welcome treat of all.

  
**☜♡☞**  


  


** 2 **

** CROWLEY’S PLANTS VS. MARY POPPINS **

** TOOTING BROADWAY, LONDON **

** 2012 **

“_Angel! I need help! Come quick, it’s an emergency!_”

Bakelite phone in hand, Aziraphale dropped the book he was holding and it fell, pages bent on his golden shoe. “Where are you? I’ll teleport to your location!”

“_My flat!_”

Aziraphale removed his physical form from his Soho bookshop (the third one he’d had, after the last two became popular) and rematerialised on the roof of a Thames river barge, apologised to a startled seagull, then vanished again, landing on someone’s concrete porch in Clapham Common, then, at last, on Crowley’s blocky black sofa.

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said. Seven-and-a-half miles away, his Bakelite telephone hit the floor of his bookshop. “I’ve left footprints on your sofa. Didn’t get a moment to wipe my feet. Damn that barge! They don’t wash the rooftops often, I suppose. So sorry.”

He got off the sofa with Crowley’s help, holding his hand on the way down.

“Now,” Aziraphale said, straightening his fraying waistcoat with a determined tug, “I have been duly summoned. You... don’t appear to be in imminent danger. This had better not be a wily demonic trick of yours, Crowley. What seems to be troubling you?”

Crowley huffed and hastened over to a sleek red barstool, one of two they’d put together after purchasing them from an IKEA in Sweden. (For the record, they’d also put IKEA together.)

“You have to _help_ me, angel,” Crowley said, back turned, clearly distressed. “I can’t do this by myself.” His shoulder-length hair was tangled, some of it halfway pulled into awkward plaits, and when he turned to Aziraphale, he offered two small and silvery cylinders, one in each hand. “Blood Rosette or The Devil Wears Pink?”

Aziraphale padded forward, taking the two lipsticks from Crowley, looking at them. He blinked. “_This_ is your emergency?”

“The red makes my complexion look severe but it has a more glossy finish and the pink looks pleasant enough, doesn’t it, but is _pleasant_ the kind of caregiver I’d be? Truly, when you think about it, should _I_, A. J. Crowley, ever be in charge of children? I’ve never looked after children. I’ve never even met children. What are children, anyway.”

“You were good friends with Miss Anne Frank, as I recall. And there was, at a time, a large gang of street urchins who looked up to you greatly. And dare I remind you about India, nineteen-forty-five, when you—”

Crowley huffed. “But I’ve never been a _nanny_.”

“It can’t be too hard, can it?” Aziraphale assured him. “Read the Antichrist some bedtime stories, tell him to brush his teeth. Make sure he doesn’t murder anyone or attend church too regularly.”

“But what if I screw up?!” Crowley collapsed in distress onto a sleek designer armchair, elbows upright, hands in his hair. “And to top it all off, none of the magazines tell you how damn hard it is to plait your own hair. I sailed the seas with Nemo before she ever met old Verne, she taught me every knot known to woman. I should’ve asked her how she did her hair. Come to think of it, in the back of my mind I just thought it kind of _came_ that way. I didn’t know there was _effort_ and _skill_ involved.”

Aziraphale sighed forgivingly. “I can do something with your hair if you like. I’ve taken a hairdressing course or two.”

“You have? When?”

“Oh, I don’t know, around the time the exalted Queen Victoria said I was the worst taste-tester she’d ever had and told me to get lost so she could eat her dinner before I did.”

“That long ago.”

“Those old styles are quite classic, actually,” Aziraphale said, arranging Crowley on a barstool, then lowering it in sudden jolts until Crowley was at the right height. Aziraphale undid the messy plaits, and finger-combed his friend’s hair. “Ooh, is that a new shampoo I smell?”

“Covers the stink of demon, does it?” Crowley uttered bitterly.

“I was going to say it compliments it,” Aziraphale replied curtly, swirling Crowley’s red locks one way, then the other, figuring out a good parting. “Quite nicely, actually.”

Crowley chuckled.

“What?” Aziraphale asked.

“Do you know how I found you the first time, angel? Standing on the wall, looking out and away from the Garden? I could smell you. Something... tingly, on my tongue. So... disgustingly happy. So _nice_.”

“Oh, those flittery, forked serpentine tongues. So over-sensitive.”

“You reeked something terrible.”

“How kind of you to say.”

Crowley was quiet for a moment. Then he admitted, “Weeell, it wasn’t that bad. Wouldn’t have gotten so close if I couldn’t stand it.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Is it blasphemous of me to say the same of you? If I’m honest, I never quite know what the other angels are complaining about. You smell rather... delightful, really.”

He felt a flush of heat over Crowley’s scalp, but elected to ignore it. He blushed a little as well.

“Please tell me you have hairpins,” Aziraphale said, as he made a finger-twist too soon and realised he couldn’t undo the movement without having to start over.

Crowley summoned one between his fingers, offering it over his shoulder. Aziraphale took it. It was sharp and black and had a plastic bat-wing shape stuck on the end.

“There,” Aziraphale said in satisfaction. “Mary Poppins _would_ be proud.”

Crowley got up to look in the nearest mirror. “Hm!”

“You like it?”

Crowley tilted and turned his head, noting how there was not a hair out of place. Almost miraculous, one might say. “Very good, angel. _Very_ good.”

“Do you have the rest of the costume?”

Crowley sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to invent one to match the hair, now, won’t I?” He trudged out of the sitting room and didn’t come back, and Aziraphale soon realised he was meant to follow.

He entered Crowley’s bedroom, and – “Oh,” – now averted his eyes, as Crowley was down to his skivvies and was busy climbing into a huge bustled black dress, muttering profanities to himself.

“Give us a hand, angel.”

Aziraphale approached, helping Crowley lace up his coal-black corset.

“I’m going to have to do this every day, aren’t I?” Aziraphale realised. “All the years we’re watching the Antichrist, I’m going to have to do your hair and lace up your dress.”

“Problem?”

“None whatsoever,” Aziraphale said truthfully.

“No, you’re right,” Crowley said with a sigh. “The less you and I fraternise the better. I’ll pick out a sensible skirt and a jacket tomorrow. If I went forties-style the hair would be easier, I could just do overnight curls. And I’ve done those a thousand times.”

“Oh... Yes. Alright then,” Aziraphale said. “If... that’s what suits you.”

“Still, no reason we can’t enjoy this for now,” Crowley suggested, perhaps picking up on Aziraphale’s solemn tone. He admired himself in another wall mirror, patting his done-up hair.

Nearby, on his bed’s nightstand, a peace lily’s leaf flopped downwards—

“Don’t. Even. Think about it,” Crowley hissed at the plant, pointing a threatening finger.

Aziraphale gave the plant a quick look. “It was just moving its leaves. They do that, you know. Trying to get the best light.”

“Yes, but it had the audacity to do it while I’m looking.” Crowley gave the plant an angry glare. “I don’t do warnings. One strike and you’re out.”

“Crowley, is that really necessary,” Aziraphale uttered, jerking on the dress’ strings and trying them in place. “You’re doing a wonderful job,” he crooned tenderly to the plant. “Don’t let this old fool’s threats get to your head. Head... Head? Do plants think?”

“They don’t need to think, they just need to grow and look pretty.”

“Quite a sad life for a plant, I suppose,” Aziraphale muttered, turning Crowley around and plumping whatever soft thing he’d padded the bosom with, making sure the two sides were even. “Or anyone, really. _Your_ plants, especially. Imagine being under all that pressure to be perfect.”

“We’re all under pressure,” Crowley snarled. “That’s how life is. No excuses. No warnings. You screw up, you’re out.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley with growing empathy. His heart sank, and he reached to touch Crowley’s grumpy face, thumb against his chin dimple. “I know it was hard for you to fall all that way, Crowley, and I know it seemed like siding with Lucifer was such a _little_ oopsie at the time, nothing wholly unforgivable... but don’t you think your poor plants deserve to have the support you never had? The chance to rehabilitate, heal... improve over time?”

“I won’t coddle them, angel,” Crowley sneered, wrenching out of the angel’s touch. “Nobody grows from being coddled.”

“Encouraged, though?”

“What good is encouragement when a loaded threat works faster and more effectively?”

Aziraphale sighed. “You really are an absolute demon sometimes.”

Crowley left the room, and again, Aziraphale took a moment to realise he wasn’t coming back. In a quick whisper to the lily, Aziraphale said, “Just do your best, you’ll be exquisite,” then rushed off after Crowley.

There he was, in the sitting room, trying on each lipstick, then evaporating the colour away when he wasn’t satisfied.

“My only suggestion,” Aziraphale said, taking both lipsticks, yanking them behind his back when Crowley reached for them, “is that you should be the sort of nanny who feels... comfortable for you. Whatever won’t get tiring after months, or years. Something... fun!”

“Fun.”

“Oy’ve bin practisin’ moi gardener’s accent,” Aziraphale said. “Just play weth eht!”

“Aye, well, I did pick up a wee bit of that old brogue when I was up in Edinburgh last,” Crowley said, in such an effortless Scottish drawl that it took Aziraphale a moment to realise that wasn’t his real voice. “And,” Crowley lightened his voice, softened it, “I suppose... it wouldn’t be terrible if I had to speak like this for the coming years as the child grows.”

“Wouldn’t be terrible at all,” Aziraphale agreed, while something in his chest fluttered inexplicably.

Crowley looked at himself in the mirror. He stroked his chin, and his stubble vanished. He looked around, located a pair of sunglasses, and set them on his nose. He looked irritated. “It’s not right. I need lipstick. But the red’s too red and the pink’s too soft!”

Aziraphale held both lipstick tubes in one hand. He closed his fist, and when he opened it again, there was only one tube. He stepped close and began to apply it to Crowley’s parted lips, ignoring his astonishment.

“There,” Aziraphale said after a full minute, smug as he stepped back. “I’ll call this shade... A Pretty Nice Demon.”

Crowley hissed at the name. But then he peered into the mirror. “Oh,” he said softly, with contentment in his voice. He started to smile. “Not too pink, not too red, not too glossy.”

“Do you want me to help you pick shoes?”

“With your fashion sense? Rather not.” Crowley lifted his dress and showed off his black Victorian boots, a red satin lining just showing around his hairy ankle.

“Perfect,” Aziraphale said, hands clasped on his stomach.

“Perfect?” Crowley tutted. “No such thing, angel.”

“That’s very true,” Aziraphale considered. “And to try and achieve perfection would be exhausting, wouldn’t you say?”

“Mary Poppins,” Crowley said bluntly. “Practically perfect in every way, as she likes to say.”

“Really, Crowley, with all this continued affection for a singalong movie made in the mid-sixties starring Julie Andrews in the lead role, I’d be hard-pressed not to think you and the angelic echelon wouldn’t get along like a bookshop on fire.”

“Puh. _Mary Poppins_ isn’t anything like _The Sound of Music_.”

“Except they were released seven months apart and both feature Julie Andrews singing and caring for children.”

“Except that. But Mary Poppins is clearly a demon, see.”

“A demon!”

“She drugs the children, gaslights them when they claim their shared hallucination was real, and essentially laughs off manslaughter, too – and to top it all off, she has supernatural powers and a particularly charming way about her. So if she were a real person I’d say she was a bona fide demon. A fairly high-ranking one, too, powers like those.”

“It _bothers_ me that that sounds about right.”

Crowley tugged at his frilled cuffs and hummed a note of finality. “And I know what you’re really saying, angel,” he added, quieter, more subdued. He didn’t meet Aziraphale’s eyes, but examined his tartan bow tie. “I can’t ever be perfect. That time is gone. So I’m just projecting all that – that-that _insecurity_ onto my plants. Saying they’re not perfect when it’s me who’s not perfect.”

“I wasn’t saying that. You’re saying that.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?”

“That I was saying that, or that you are in fact projecting nearly six thousand years of performance anxiety onto your houseplants?”

Crowley puffed out some air and turned to walk away.

“You are perfect,” Aziraphale said softly.

Crowley stopped. He looked back. He sneered. “What?”

“You are perfect. In your own way. You’re no angel, and you’ve quite frankly made a mess of being a demon too, but...” Aziraphale offered the softest, most adoring smile he’d ever allow himself to show anyone, meant only for his closest companion. “But you are the most perfect Anthony J. Crowley that there ever was. And the most perfect, beautiful, and special friend I could ever ask for. I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

For a short moment, there was a decent hint of a smile on the corners of Crowley’s lipsticked lips. It looked a little Scottish, as odd as it was to notice.

Then he blinked, eyes down, and turned away. “If this is all a plot to make me be nice to my plants, it’s not working. Your angelic wiles shan’t sway me.”

“I didn’t— That wasn’t— Well, if it happened to be a side-effect, I’d hardly complain—”

“Just get into your costume, would you. We’ll do a dress rehearsal.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, swiped his hand, and became a buck-toothed gardener, complete with sunburned skin and a piece of straw hanging from his lip.

Crowley cringed. “Oh, for Hell’s sake, lose the overbite. I can’t look at that mug for any more than a second.”

“I will not,” Aziraphale retorted. “All people are perfect in all sorts of ways and I won’t have you dictate to me what’s beautiful and what’s not, you fiend.”

Crowley sighed. “You’re such an _angel_ sometimes, Aziraphale,” he said, with hearty distaste.

“Brother Francis, ef you please. Oy let me plants grow whatever way they loik,” Aziraphale said. “Such hardy things. Don’t need much, most of ‘em. Just water, sunlight, and a kind, encouraging word now and again—”

“Will you shut up about the plants?” Crowley whined.

“Only if you promise to be nice to them sometimes.”

“Fine! _Fine_! You there, snake plant on the windowsill. You’re... You’re—” Crowley fritzed in annoyance. “You’re not the worst of the bunch!”

Aziraphale smiled. “There’s hope for you yet, nanny.”

Crowley looked a little shaken, as if giving a plant a compliment had made him nauseous. “I suddenly regret very deeply asking you to come.”

“I’m an angel. More often than not, I do as I’m asked, so when you asked, I came. And I won’t leave a friend in distress. Even if his major emergency is an absolute misuse of a miracle that would’ve been prevented if he could’ve waited less than an hour for me to catch a train and a taxi. Six thousand years alive and yet you’re always in such a rush. What’s the hurry?”

Crowley crossed his arms.

“Seems you have some of those fabled feminine wiles after all,” Aziraphale smiled. “Getting me here so quickly.” His smile vanished. “I think I dropped a book on my way out.”

Crowley’s glare softened to nothing. “You dropped a _book_? For me?”

Aziraphale squirmed, but turned his squirm into a shrug. “It seems I did.”

Crowley said nothing. But his genuine, not-especially-demonic grin said it all.

  
**☜♡☞**  


  


** 3 **

** ONE ESPECIALLY NEFARIOUS PROPOSITION INVOLVING ACCIDENTAL SLOW-DANCING, MOVING IN TOGETHER, AND CUDDLING **

** SOHO, LONDON **

** 2018 **

“Thus,” Aziraphale went on, following Crowley around the bookshop as he read to him aloud from that day’s _Tadfield Observer_, “Mr. R. P. Tyler of the neighbourhood watch stands by his claim that the entire world’s upheaval yesterday was directly connected to the actions of a young Tadfield resident, whose name we will not publish, as we— Dear, are you even listening?”

“Hm?” Crowley looked up from a nearby shelf, peeking out under his low-dipped sunglasses. Aziraphale looked back at him, all fluffy-haired and grey-eyed. Crowley blinked. “Oh. Yes. Carry on.”

“You’re not listening.”

“I am listening,” Crowley argued. “I have functioning ears, so I’m listening.”

“Yes, but you’re not paying any attention. You asked me to read this aloud and now you’re off in some other world. What’s got you so distracted, anyway?”

Crowley looked down the parallel aisles of books they stood between, his eyes unfocused, lips parted. “Oh...” He shook his head. “Doesn’t it all seem strange, now? Going back to what we were doing before? You running your bookshop... Me, instigating a mild but widespread irritation from a vague, untraceable source. We were there while the world got saved, angel, and... now living in it seems dissatisfying, somehow.”

“Does it?” Aziraphale lowered the newspaper. “Speak for yourself, I say. I’m quite content to get back to the norm after all that palaver.”

Crowley shrugged with his lower lip, head down as he returned to gazing wistfully and unseeingly at a shelf. He tried to muster up an inner carelessness, the sort of vibe he liked to live by, but the discontent lingered.

“Well, anyway,” Aziraphale said, turning away to put the newspaper down on his desk. “You get the picture. Everyone knows _something_ happened but only _we_ know what and why. The world will recover soon enough. I’m sure someday they’ll even forget Armageddon came close to happening at all.”

“Are you staying here tonight?” Crowley asked, leaning on a shelf, hip cocked out. Aziraphale turned, and their eyes met. Crowley shrugged one shoulder. “Just asking. There’s room at my place. There’s always the option. If you like.”

“I only just got my bookshop back from oblivion, I should like to enjoy it a little,” Aziraphale said carefully.

Crowley glanced down. He himself only just got _Aziraphale_ back from oblivion, he should’ve liked to enjoy _him_ a little, too. “Whatever, angel.” Crowley shifted away and stalked off.

“Crowley—”

Crowley heard Aziraphale pattering after him. He took Crowley’s arm and turned him.

Aziraphale let go of him, taking an uncertain breath, holding his gaze. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to, but – Heaven aside, and I suppose Heaven is truly aside now, after today’s events – I don’t often sleep,” Aziraphale said. He’d said the same thing last night, once the Oxford bus had dropped them outside Crowley’s London flat. “Really, what would be the point? You know. Me sitting on your sofa all night while you hibernate in another room.”

Crowley wondered that, too.

“But,” Aziraphale saw the ache in Crowley’s eyes, and offered a soppy smile. “Maybe just this once. I could organise your toiletries. Rearrange your kitchen.”

With a roll of his eyes, Crowley snuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and sighed. “If that’s what it takes to get you there.”

“H-How long,” Aziraphale gulped, “do you expect me to stay, exactly?”

Crowley shrugged. “However long you like.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale pondered. “Maybe I ought to take some books with me. Just in case.”

Crowley’s heart flipped, but he played it cool, nodding and pushing his lower lip up like he didn’t much care. “Bring a boxful.”

“A whole box.”

“Two boxes,” Crowley said, hoping that the more books Aziraphale brought, the longer he’d stay. “Or ten.”

“Might as well migrate the whole shop over there,” Aziraphale joked.

Crowley smirked. “Could do. There’s room.”

Aziraphale’s smile drifted away, but a curious spark remained twinkling in his eyes. “You don’t get many visitors.”

“Not many.”

“So nobody would be trying to buy my books.”

Crowley said nothing. He turned away to let Aziraphale decide, and he went to the gramophone, putting on a little Bach. The record started to turn, and it played sweetly, softly, and then, right on cue, Queen’s bassline came a-plunking in. Aziraphale had made the mistake of not changing the record for two weeks, and apparently even an Antichristal reset couldn’t fix that problem.

“I-I suppose,” Aziraphale said nervously, as Crowley returned to him, hips swaying in time with the music, “I could stay a while. Couldn’t hurt, could it. Could keep an eye on each other. Make sure Heaven and Hell aren’t about to break their word. All that sort of lark.”

Crowley swaggered up to his front and put his hands on the angel’s waist, stepping to and fro.

Aziraphale began to slow-dance with him, although he clearly didn’t realise he was doing it. His hands lay themselves on Crowley’s shoulder, keeping him steady. “And we could have breakfast together, like the old days in Calais. Or that summer we spent in the Alps, do you remember—”

“You made the best omelettes,” Crowley recalled. “Wouldn’t mind trying those again.”

“It might even be _fun_,” Aziraphale said, starting to beam, his plump cheeks rosy in the bookshop’s dim light. “And I could—”

He went quiet there, startled by his position, finding his hand taken gently by Crowley’s, his waist held close by a hand on his lower back, their chests together.

“You could read to me,” Crowley said quietly, admiring Aziraphale’s fluttering lashes. “All your favourite books. Maybe those new ones Adam left us.”

“Oh, yes, perhaps I could.” There was a note of awe in Aziraphale’s voice. He had the chance to stop dancing but Crowley didn’t even feel a flinch. Rolling with an urge, Crowley lifted their hands and twirled his angel around, and Aziraphale laughed, coming back to him, one hand on Crowley’s beating heart.

Crowley smiled, feeling something pleasant and gooey inside his chest. This was a nice moment. And in this nice moment he didn’t even worry that ‘nice’ was a bad thing for a demon. He liked this very much.

As they swayed, and stepped silently around on the red carpet between mountains of books, Aziraphale gazed into Crowley’s eyes. Crowley let it feel good, there was no reason to resist now. Heaven and Hell would leave them be, so where was the harm in letting go, just for once? Once in six thousand years.

He stopped resisting, and let his serpentine pupils dilate. He sniffed in alarm, and controlled himself again. But Aziraphale had seen those black slits shiver wide, just for a moment, and now his gaze had intensified. He waited to see it again.

Crowley tried not to look back. But he couldn’t help it...

That nice, soft feeling in him got softer and nicer, and colours around him brightened, lights began to glow with huge auras, and Aziraphale’s own eyes widened in his new awareness. He realised Crowley had been resisting so many natural responses to his angelic presence. Even ones as basal as pupil dilation. Dilated pupils could’ve meant anything, especially in this low light, but tonight, as the world was quiet and safe, and they were in each other’s arms, it only meant one thing. Attraction.

Ashamed, Crowley looked down. He couldn’t believe that after six millennia of holding himself together he could just let his guard down like that. Damn him. He was going to give his plants a good talking-to once he got home. He might even throw their leaves into the shredder one-by-one for good measure.

He startled as he felt a hand on his cheek.

Aziraphale smiled at him. “It’s okay, my dear,” he whispered.

No it wasn’t.

“It is,” Aziraphale said. “Really.” He eased Crowley’s head close, and without warning, he placed a tender kiss on his cheek.

Crowley inhaled sharply, looking back in shock. Aziraphale had started to blush, and their dancing rhythm fell apart – but Crowley couldn’t take another breath at all. He transformed into a snake and curled up small enough to fit into a soup bowl, and then fell five feet ‘til he went splat on the carpet, at which point he curled up tighter, head tucked under himself. He hissed, overwhelmed.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you—”

Crowley felt warm hands embracing him, lifting his noodle body up-up-up off the floor. He wound himself around those hands, looking for security, and peeked out between two coils of his red belly and black scales, watching a section of the bookshop whoosh past.

“You’d best sit here, I don’t want to tread on you,” Aziraphale said, placing Crowley on top of the _Tadfield Observer_. It smelled inky. Aziraphale’s hand tried to pull away but Crowley hugged tighter, inexplicably wanting him to stay.

“Oh, you are _darling_, aren’t you,” Aziraphale crooned, taking his seat at the desk, hopping closer, a gentle smile on his lips. He peered down as a pale, platinum-haired giant, affection in his gaze. “Perhaps I’d better read to you to take your mind off things. A’hm.” He shifted the newspaper closer, lifting Crowley in one hand to read the main article.

“Following the security breach at the Tadfield Air Base, military representatives presented a statement, as follows...”

Aziraphale put on his glasses to read, and Crowley listened, sinking comfortably around Aziraphale’s wrist. His long middle hung casually across the tender bridge between thumb and finger, tongue flicking out occasionally to taste that delicate angelic perfume. Crowley closed his eyes, comforted by the mutter of his friend’s voice.

“...Thus ends one of the most turbulent days in Tadfield’s history. We at the _Tadfield Observer_ are grateful to the residents for remaining calm in these difficult times, and actually Crowley I think I might go and pack now, if that’s okay by you. Nobody was hurt by these events and – I should definitely take a sweater, maybe the white turtleneck, it does feel like turtleneck season now, doesn’t it – and we continue our residence in Tadfield assured that nothing like this will happen again. Well, not anytime soon, definitely,” Aziraphale added.

He took off his glasses. He looked at Crowley.

Crowley looked back.

“I won’t be long,” Aziraphale said. “I do have a tough little suitcase.”

Crowley stuck out his tiny tongue.

Aziraphale tutted fondly. He scooped Crowley off his hand and plopped him down on the desk. “Back soon.”

He left the downstairs part of the bookshop, ascending the hidden staircase. Like he’d said, he didn’t rest much, so the upstairs was as unfamiliar to Aziraphale as it was to Crowley. It was just a place he kept clothes and, apparently, a suitcase. Probably the same one they took to the Alps nearly two hundred years prior. Aziraphale was a sentimental bastard that way.

Crowley felt all warm and snuggly, curled up tight. He shut his eyes, smiling a tiny snake smile, because he still felt the ghost of Aziraphale’s hand holding him close. Crowley liked cuddles. He wanted more cuddles.

Being a small snake was the best remedy for overwhelm, sometimes. Big-snake Crowley had too many thoughts. But small-snake Crowley had a head pleasantly occupied by an electric sizzle and not much else, so when he needed to nope out of a situation, he could nope _right_ the heck out.

Over the next fifteen minutes, he heard Aziraphale bumping around upstairs, footsteps and suitcase-thumps and the tap of spare shoes being moved around. Then came the distinct silence of Aziraphale picking out which books to take. He came downstairs and hunted for more books.

During that time, Crowley relaxed. He uncurled his tangled body, yawned, licked a pen, then lounged against a Holy Bible until he realised what he was lounging against, and exploded back into human shape in a startled hurry. He ran to the other side of the bookshop, checked himself over for burns, then warily trod back, straightening his slinky scarf so it hung right.

“Oh, good, you’re proper again,” Azirpahale said, padding close with that antique brown suitcase hanging from one hand. It looked heavy. Eighteen books, Crowley guessed. “Ready to go, are we?”

Crowley stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded nonchalantly. “Mm-hm.”

“Well then.” Aziraphale offered a crooked elbow.

Crowley smiled, and tucked his arm through his old friend’s. “Off we go.”

Aziraphale didn’t even hesitate on the doorstep, as Crowley had expected. He stepped out into the night, didn’t turn the lights off, didn’t look back. Crowley did it all for him, pulling out of Aziraphale’s arm to go back to the shop’s door. He clicked his fingers, and the lights went out.

Holding the door, Crowley peered into the darkness, remembering how it looked only the day before: ablaze in a hungry yellow, unbearable heat pouring from every wall and beam. It was safe now. But even so, Crowley couldn’t help but whisper a protective blessing. Just in case.

Just in case Aziraphale didn’t come back for a few weeks.

Months.

Or years.

Or ever.

“Are you coming, Crowley?” Aziraphale called from the Bentley, which waited in the road in a no-park zone on the corner of an intersection, yet had not been scratched even once.

“Coming.” Crowley shut the door and locked it with a blink. He trotted down the steps and went to the car. Aziraphale was already inside, putting on some Velvet Underground.

Queen’s _Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy_ played as Crowley pulled into the road.

“I don’t know why you thought I wouldn’t like it,” Aziraphale said. “Sounds like everything else you play.”

Crowley rolled his snake eyes, appreciating the joke.

  
**☜♡☞**  


“Just because you don’t need to sleep, doesn’t mean you _shouldn’t_,” Crowley said, opening up a bed from the sofa, which hadn’t been a sofa-bed until he opened it, and which point it had decided it was and had been all along. “Sleeping’s nice. Sometimes I can even have dreams.”

“And nightmares?”

“Big fan of nightmares, me,” Crowley said, flapping a thick black quilt over the sofa-bed, while a couple of pillows appeared out of nowhere.

“All black, really?” Aziraphale complained, reaching to plump the pillows from the other side of the bed. As he touched them they turned to cream-coloured tartan. “Much better.”

“Ugh.”

“Tartan is stylish! It is! Ask anyone.”

“At least make it a better colour,” Crowley said, turning the black quilt into a blood-red tartan. “There.”

“Hm,” Aziraphale said, hands on his hips.

“You have to wear pyjamas,” Crowley said. “Otherwise it doesn’t count.”

Aziraphale let out a thin, long-suffering breath. With a swoop of his hand, his tailcoat and trousers became a ivory-and-white pinstriped nightgown and a long cloth hat with a tassel on the end.

“If I have nightmares, I’m lodging a complaint,” Aziraphale said firmly, putting a glass of water down on a carved wooden nightstand that looked forty years old but was four seconds new. A lacy lampshade came on above it.

“You won’t have nightmares,” Crowley said, casually, as he arranged the universe to provide nice dreams for everyone in a ten-mile radius so Aziraphale wouldn’t think he was playing favourites.

“Right.” Crowley scratched the back of his neck with a finger. He was in his own sleepwear, which consisted of a comfy black t-shirt – actually thrifted, not just summoned into existence, because it just had a _realness_ about it that he was fond of – and a pair of black shorts that only just covered what needed covering. “I’ll just. Be. In my room, then.”

“Goodnight, Crowley.”

“‘Night.” Crowley backed away, then turned and sauntered off.

He went to his room and shut the door. He paused. Then rested his forehead on the blackened birchwood.

He still felt dissatisfied. Bringing the angel here was meant to fix that. The memory of that one cheek kiss should’ve fixed that. The Bentley being back and running more smoothly than ever should’ve been enough. The world _not_ being on the brink of extinction for the first time in eleven years, _that_ should’ve given Crowley enough satisfaction to last another six millennia.

Yet...?

Crowley thumped into bed and curled up angrily.

He glared at the peace lily on his nightstand. “Damn you,” he said.

The peace lily pouted.

Crowley folded his arms and glared at the ceiling. He lurched over to his right and glared at the wall. Then he wrenched himself to lie on his left, and stopped glaring. That side of the bed was empty.

His yellow eyes wandered up to the peace lily by his bed. It was looking a little nervous. Yet Crowley couldn’t bring himself to shout at it. Not even a little muttered threat.

Poor thing was just lonely. That was all.

Crowley got out of bed, stormed out of his room, beelined for the windowsill, and snatched up his snake plant.

“Hello?” Aziraphale was sitting up in bed, reading. “Are you all right, Crowley?”

“Fine,” Crowley snarled, stalking back to his room and slamming the door. He put the snake plant down by the peace lily. “There!” he snapped. “Are you satisfied now?”

The peace lily perked up a bit. It leaned closer to the snake plant until they touched.

The snake plant, however, looked like it had been wishing for a companion all its life and suddenly all its dreams came true. It grew two inches taller.

Crowley hit the bed and buried himself in the black velvet sheets, turned away from the plants. How dare they be so happy.

His fury slowly dissipated.

Soon he was just upset.

He lay on his back and frowned, trying not to let all the water get into his eyes, but they flooded anyway. He covered his face with his hands and sobbed, clutching his supple sheets to his forehead. Stupid emotions. He didn’t sign up for these.

He pulled himself together sharpish as he heard the click of his bedroom door opening.

“Crowley...?”

“Nothing, I’m fine,” Crowley sneered as he sat up.

Aziraphale came in and closed the door behind him, which was presumptuous. He’d brought his tartan blanket with him, which he hugged around himself like a cloak.

“I can feel your distress from the next room,” he said quietly. He sat at the side of the bed, looking imploringly at Crowley. “What’s wrong?”

“Why would there be anything wrong? Everything’s perfect, angel. Peachy. Dandy. A-okay.”

Aziraphale looked at him carefully. It took a while, and he tilted his head slightly. Then he shrugged and looked away. “If there’s nothing wrong, I can go.” He stood up to leave.

“Ah-Angel, wait—”

Crowley fumed at himself.

Aziraphale noticed the empty side of the bed, where Crowley had already pulled back the covers. He took a step closer... then, when Crowley didn’t react, Aziraphale went the rest of the way and closed the distance between them, crawling onto the bed, laying down, putting his tartan blanket over himself.

“It’s not like we’re _sharing_ the bed,” Aziaphale noted. “Two blankets. We’re just... resting close. Finding a foxhole amidst the chaos of the world.”

“Mm-hm,” Crowley said, lying down, looking at Aziraphale softly from the next pillow along.

“In case I have nightmares,” Aziraphale said.

“Exactly,” Crowley said.

“Well,” Aziraphale said. He took a breath, then exhaled. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.”

The light went off.

It got quiet.

Crowley heard the faint _swshh_ of the peace lily cozying up to the snake plant. Crowley scowled. Aziraphale would never do that. Six thousand years and Crowley could still count the number of times they’d hugged on two hands.

However... six thousand years was quite possibly the limit for an angel’s patience. Crowley felt two fingers nudge up to his palm. Aziraphale linked his fingers between Crowley’s, and they held hands.

This was further than they’d ever gone before, which was what made this so frustrating: there remained this incessant _ache_ in Crowley’s chest and it wouldn’t _stop_. He still wanted something. And all he could think about was turning into a snake so maybe Azirpahale would hold him again.

“Crowley,” Azirpahale whispered in the dark.

“Hm?”

A quiet, shuddering breath shivered in the silence.

“What,” Crowley prompted.

Aziraphale gulped. Then he said, voice shaking. “Come to me.”

He took Crowley’s shoulder and tugged him. Crowley shifted, then wriggled, and then rushed to press his face to Aziraphale’s chest, embraced tightly. He relaxed. It seemed so easy all of a sudden. He smiled, lay a hand on Aziraphale’s warm waist, and was cuddled.

A long, relieved breath sank from Crowley’s mouth.

Not two seconds later, the same sigh slid from Aziraphale’s.

He’d been waiting, too.

Crowley didn’t know whether the last six thousand years had been some long-term ungodly ploy to trick a vulnerable demon into doing good, but at this point, Crowley hardly cared. He’d fallen for those angelic wiles, further than he’d ever fallen before, and he was content with having done so.

The truth of it was that Aziraphale had turned him down for so long that it might have just become habit. Saying no and pretending they weren’t in love was The Done Thing. Yet there was nothing to shake up a slow angel’s habits better than a very fast Apocalypse. One day’s grace, and he was already ready to try.

Everything was back to normal. But nothing would be the same ever again.

Tomorrow morning Crowley was going to make Aziraphale the biggest, fanciest, tastiest breakfast he’d ever eaten, and he was going to use every trick he had to make it as close to perfect as possible. If Crowley knew anything about his own wiles, demonic or otherwise, it was that, occasionally, Aziraphale just couldn’t resist.

** { the end } **** **

**Author's Note:**

> ♥ [reblog fic](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/186782428395/three-unthwarted-wiles)  
♥ [reblog art](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/186782793520/heres-a-fic-in-which-when-overwhelmed-by)
> 
> I'll have to edit this end note once I've posted the other Good Omens fics in my drafts, since there's only [this one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024635) so far, but if you're interested, maybe [subscribe to me here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/almaasi)?  
Edit: [It's happening!!!!](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=575567&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=almaasi)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you had fun reading this! Whether you're coming from the Good Omens fandom, or if you just read this because you like my writing and you'll read anything I write (I love you people sO damn much wow) please let me know!! Wishing you all nice and accurate lives.  
Elmie x


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